GeoffShackelford.com

When you realize that a golf club positions the player’s hands 40 inches, more or less, from a ball 1.68 inches in diameter that must be hit precisely after a swing that may take the clubhead on a round trip of as much as 26 or 27 feet, you become aware of the importance of using clubs conforming correctly to your requirements. TOMMY ARMOUR

Actually, the forward-thinking world No. 5 is trying to better teach his brain to be calm, focused and stress-free.

Clearly his DVD player was off last week or maybe he got bogged down working through studio screeners—it is LA where no one in the industry pays to see a nominee—but as Mike McAllisterdetails for PGATour.com, DeChambeau is normally on the cutting edge of brain-training work.

Using his travel-sized Neuropeak Pro brain-training unit, DeChambeau pops in the DVD, then attaches a gold-plated silver EEG sensor to his head. The real-time data he receives monitors the peaks and valleys of his brain’s electrical current as the movie unfolds. DeChambeau’s goal is to avoid the spikes that occur at the most stressful, intense parts; he wants to keep his high beta and theta ratios inside a pre-determined range.

If the activity in his brain fires too high, the movie will immediately stop. Only when DeChambeau relaxes his brain – controlling his breathing, reducing his heart rate, focusing his mind to reach a calm state -- will the movie resume playing.

Maintaining a proper balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic states, flattening out his EEG reading to eliminate the highs and lows – that’s the end game.

I wonder how many kids will be sending this story to parents suggesting they need a Neuropeak Pro system and Amazon gift card in their lives?

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RIP His Ownself, Dan Jenkins. The best sportswriter ever. Not often do you get to hang out with your hero, but I did four times a year and consider myself one lucky SOB! Thanks for all the laughs and support over the years, press rooms and media hotel bars will never be the same.

Lefty! @djohnsonpga has a good move left or righthanded

90 years ago at Riviera’s first LA Open the press worked from the clubhouse patio using a telescope and binoculars. This week the @genesisopen media center was a massive operation in between holes 1 & 2 with WiFi, a barista, interview room, TV’s and ShotLink data at our fingertips. Thank you to the staff, volunteers @tgrliveevents @genesis_usa, Brenner-Zwikel team and @pgatour for another great week at Riviera during the 2019 Genesis Open won by J.B. Holmes.